Escape and Thievery
by abetternameneeded
Summary: Robin teaches Alice how to pick locks. Tilly can't remeber where she learned how to be a thief.


**A/N: based on my headcanon that Robin taught Alice some thievery skills and that's why Tilly knows how to do it.**

Robin Mills had an idea. She wasn't sure if Alice would like it. Not that Alice was one to pass up on an adventure. But this wasn't the same kind of adventure Alice tended to take off on. This one could be done just sitting still. Or as still as Alice could stand to be. She was restless at the best of times. And the worst? Well she ran off to loads of places. Not that Robin could blame her, she had spent so much time cooped up in what amounted to a prison. At one time it had been almost a home of some kind, but then her father had been cruelly ripped away from her. She'd escaped the walls but she was still trapped. She couldn't be near him any more now than she could when she had a barrier blocking her inside stone walls above the world she could only dream of touching. And Robin knew Alice was scared. She was scared of being trapped. It was so hard for her to be locked up in that cell when they'd been arrested. She admired the girl's bravery. Although Robin wasn't sure she knew that they'd get arrested. She had stood up to both Robin and an entire pub filled with men with weapons. Robin _had_ apologized for leaving her in that cell. There was no ill will between the two. In fact they'd grown quite close and had even began dating. Robin could swear she was starting to fall in love with the blonde. And yeah, she had an idea.

Tilly slipped the watch off of a strangers wrist. Although she recgonized almost everyone in the Heights. No one recgonized her. Hardly anyone ever remebered her face. She slipped the watch into her pocket without the man even noticing he had lost it. She'd sell it later. The cops didn't seem to mind her questoinable business practices. She knew everyone in town and could tell them plenty. And Detective Weaver tended to bring her marmalade sandwhiches. He told her they were her favorite but she wasn't quite sure how she could know that. Sure she ate them a lot, and she did enjoy the sticky and slightly bittersweer substance but she could swear maybe she liked other foods. Maybe in another life. But what other life? She'd always been Tilly. Crazy Tilly. Absolutley mad. But she couldn't remember some things. Some things were missing. It was like putting a puzzle together only lots of the pieces were missing. Or maybe there just weren't as many pieces as she thought. Tilly shook her head trying to rid herself of her thoughts. They were all so confusing. Weren't they? She headed back to her train car. It wasn't much but it was what could count as a shelter.

Alice was scared of being locked up, unable to be free. And Robin was a master at escape. So she was going to offer to teach Alice how to pick a lock. Maybe it'd curb some of her fear. Maybe it'd get the wonderlust girl to lock the door to her cottage. It wasn't safe to leave it unlocked all the time, but Alice was so scared it wouldn't open that she had thrown away the key far before she met Robin

The lock on Tilly's train car didn't quite work. It seemed so unsafe but Tilly liked it for some reason. She couldn't remeber. She saw flashes of what lookd like some fairytale. Maybe is was a movie she had seen? Or a book? She didn't know. But she did know that she hated the thought of a lock on her door. She couldn't remeber much about when she was young. Maybe something had hapened then? She shook it off and went about her day.

Robin knocked on the door to the cottage. She knew she could walk in but Alice wasn't used to people and Robin didn't want to announce to anyone that might be nearby that the door was rarely, if ever, locked.

Alice answered the door and enguglfed Robin in a hug. Alice absolutley loved those. She had been so deprived of physical affection she offered much of it to Robin.

They entered Alice's cottage and she offered Robin tea. The tea was quite good. They talked and flirted quite a bit before Robin decided to ask Alice if she wanted to learn how to pick locks. Alice seemed excited by the prospect and so they set to work. It took a few weeks for Alice to learn the skill. Robin had had years of practice and Alice could only stay still for so long before getting restless and needing to take a break from playing around with something she feared so much. But Alice did learn the skill. And then they moved on to basic parlor tricks based off of the art of escape and theivery. And soon Alice could pick pockets. Not that she'd need or even ever use the skill but she had it if she did.

Tilly wasn't sure where she'd learned to steal without getting caught. Maybe she was just invisible. No one ever noticed her. But that was the point wasn't it? And then she stopped taking those bloody pills. The pills that made her feel so much smaller than she was. The pills that clouded her vision. The detectives said they made her see clearly. But they were wrong. They made everything so much harder to see. And then she shot Weaver. So she went back on the pills. And she got a real job. One that didn't involve stealing. And she moved in with Detective Rogers something felt so familar about him. And yet so distant. She couldn't stand the lock on his door either. But she wasn't sure why.

And then Tilly dissapeared. And Alice came back. But she still had both memories. She was still all mixed up. Just like Tilly had told Henry. It was all so confusing for Alice. But she remebered. Detective Rogers was her papa. Margot was Robin. Henry was well he was Henry but not in the way Alice knew him. That's why Tilly was so against the locks, Alice remebered. That's why Tilly knew how to steal but didn't remeber learning it. She had never learned it. Alice had.


End file.
